1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of packet processing; and more specifically, to packet processing on a multi-core processor.
2. Description of the Related Art
A multi-core processor (e.g., a multi-core network processor, a multi-core general purpose processor, etc.) is a processor with two or more processing cores. Multi-core processors may increase processing performance. However, the packet processing architecture of a system is modified to realize the processing performance advantages of a multi-core processor. One packet processing architecture includes executing the same packet processing modules on each core. Thus, in this packet processing architecture, each core may process any packet.
Another packet processing architecture includes a single processing core or processor (e.g., a separate general purpose CPU) only processing “exception” packets, while the other cores only process “non-exception” packets. In this architecture, typically all packets are received by the processing cores that process the “non-exception” packets. Upon determining a packet is an “exception” packet, that packet is forwarded to the processing core or processor dedicated for processing “exception” packets.